Hi. My name is Amanda. I've always been a huge comic book fan. My primary interest as far as that goes has always been Superman, The Fantastic Four and of course, the X-Men. Like a lot of fan fiction readers, I signed up mainly so that I could get email notices when my favorite stories are updated.

I am a massive bookworm! And proud of it.

Some of my favorite books are: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin, The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart, Patriot Games by Tom Clancy, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Interview with a Vampire by Anne Rice, Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier, The Good Guy by Dean Koontz, Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie, The Glass Lake by Maeve Binchy, Kiss by Ted Dekker, Carolina Moon by Nora Roberts...The list is endless. My house is filled to overflowing with books. They're everywhere!

Favorite Pairings:

Superman Movieverse: Clark Kent (Superman) & Lois Lane of course! Comic-verse: Clark/Lois. Clark/Diana Prince (Wonder Woman). And I also kind of liked the way Superman/Maxima looked together.

X-Men Movieverse: Rogue & Wolverine. I mean come on - the untouchable girl and a guy with metal claws and no past. It doesn't get much better than that!! Rogue is my girl. My all time favorite comic book character. So it kind of goes without saying that I'm a pretty massive fan of the Rogue/Gambit ship too. The Cajun is pretty darn irresistible! And I'm not opposed to a good Rogue/Scott Summers story.

X-Men Evolution: Anna Marie (Rogue) & Remy LeBeau (Gambit)

Wolverine & the X-Men: Anna Marie (Rogue) & Remy LeBeau (Gambit)

Spider-Man Comic-Verse/Movie-verse: Peter Parker (Spider-Man) & Mary Jane Watson. I admit to having a soft spot for Spidey and the Black Cat.

Harry Potter: Harry Potter & Hermione Granger. In the realm of fanfiction, I do like a good Harry/Ginny fic. But I absolutely hate the character of Ginny Weasley in cannon. Just never warmed up to her. Their relationship seemed like a rush job to me in the books and felt too fake. Ron Weasley: Hate him. He was a perfectly likeable character in the first few books, but after book 4, ugh.

Twilight: Edward Cullen/Bella Swan. I loath Jacob Black. In my opinion he's an overbearing manipulative jerk. Most definately not a Team Jacob gal. And to be honest, I really can't stand Alice Cullen - too pushy.

Pride and Prejudice: Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy. My favorite literary couple of all-time! The greatest love story ever written bar none.

Criminal Minds: Spencer Ried. I love him. I mostly prefer to read him with a well written original character. Although, I did like Maeve so much better than any of the other characters they put him with. Just saying, smart girls rock.

Arrow: Oliver Queen/Felicity Smoak. I'm a die-hard Olicity shipper!

What Bless Your Heart Really Means

By Mother and daughter authors, Sandra Poole and Jennifer Youngblood

We've all heard it, and most of us have said it, but what does it really mean? Now, before all of you dyed-in-the-wool Southerners get your drawers in a wad and start hollering that I'm preaching to the choir, let me continue. "Bless your heart" is not something that you have to explain to Southerners. We all understand it because it's our language. We all know that "bless your heart" has many meanings, kind of like how the word aloha means hello, goodbye, and I love you in Hawaiian. It all depends on how you use it. Like I said earlier, I used to think that everybody knew what "bless your heart" meant, and it wasn't until a friend of mine from out West started complaining about it that I realized that the term could be confusing to foreigners. So, here are a few simple definitions you can use the next time a Yankee or Westerner starts carrying on about the way we talk.

"Bless your heart" is a form of empathy. It's like giving someone a great, big hug. When a friend starts complaining about her rotten boss, her no count husband, and how the kids are driving her crazy, we just shake our heads and look her in the eye and give her a heartfelt "bless your heart." It's our way of saying "Honey, I'm so sorry. I know just how you feel, and I'm glad that today it's you and not me." When your cousin Susie does something just plain dumb, and your aunt Margaret calls you up to tell you about it, you just listen real close and utter a few "bless her hearts" when she pauses long enough to draw in a breath. That way you'll both know that even though Susie doesn't have enough sense to blow up a pea, she's still family after all, and we love her anyway. In the South, we believe in being polite even if it kills us. So, when we just can't fight the urge to say something nasty, we follow it up with a "bless her heart" just to make us feel better. "Look at that poor woman trying to jog around that track. Her rear-end is dragging a trail, bless her heart." Probably the most important way we use "bless your heart" is so we can identify each other. When I'm far from home and feeling all alone, I just throw out a few "bless your hearts" into the conversation and see what happens. If the person I'm talking to gets this confused look like I've just sprouted another head , then I just go on to the next person and do the same thing until finally I hear that familiar twang that's sweeter than a melody and then come those beautiful words "Well, bless your heart." That's when I know I'm home-- even though I'm a thousand miles away.

So the next time someone comes up and puts an arm around you and offers a heart-felt "bless your heart," you'd better count your lucky stars that you're in a place where people still care enough to say it. Yes, indeed. Bless your heart, and God bless the hearts of all Southerners!

Great minds can read this!

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"Fanfiction is what literature might look like if it were reinvented from scratch after a nuclear apocalypse by a band of brilliant pop-culture junkies trapped in a sealed bunker. They don't do it for money. That's not what it's about. The writers write it and put it up online just for the satisfaction. They're fans, but they're not silent, couchbound consumers of media. The culture talks to them, and they talk back to the culture in its own language." - Lev Grossman,TIME, July 18, 2011

"You know when sometimes you meet someone so beautiful and then you actually talk to them and five minutes later they're as dull as a brick? Then there's other people, when you meet them you think, 'Not bad. They're okay.' And then you get to know them and... and their face just sort of becomes them. Like their personality's written all over it. And they just turn into something so beautiful."
— Amelia Pond